sound levels
sound levels
How do I raise the sound on an avi movie?
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DewDude420
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Re: sound levels
Goldwave cannot directly do this because it doesn't really deal with video. When you open a video file, Goldwave hands it over to DirectShow and DirectShow (at least I think it's directshow, i'll be corrected if i'm wrong) then demuxes the audio, decodes it, and hands it to Goldwave.
However, it is entirely possible to use Goldwave to boost your sound levels.
What you'll need to do is head over to virtualdub.org and grab a copy of virturaldub. I also highly suggest you pick up a copy of the K-Lite Codec Pack(http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm) because while you may have the proper DirectShow filters installed for video, VirtualDub does not use Directshow and depends on VFW (video for windows) codecs.
Open your video file in Goldwave to get the audio. Make whatever modifications to your audio WITHOUT EDITING! It's very important you do not make any cuts to the beginning or in the middle of the file in order to maintain sync. This method relies on the beginning of the audio file and further content to be the same. You CAN use mute if you want to remove something, but do not delete. The ONLY exception is if you're trimming audio off the end of the file, but a good rule of thumb is to not do any cutting/pasting/deleting to the file at all....just whatever effects you need to bring the audio back up. For best results, save this file as a wave.
Open your video file in VirtualDub. Click on Video in the menubar and select "direct stream copy", this tells virtualdub that we're not going to be processing the video and to just copy the video stream directly. Now jump to Audio. What you'll want to do is select the "Audio from antoher file" option and select your wav file. On the same audio drop-down menu, you'll want to select Full Processing Mode, this will enable you to select the compression settings so you can compress the audio to whatever codec you need. Once you've done that, select Save As AVI and make sure you save it to a different location or new file name. VirtualDub will compress the audio and output an AVI with the new audio with the old video. This simple process is basically known as muxing since we're basically having VirtualDub strip the streams from the AVI and create a new AVI using seperate streams. This is why it's important you don't edit the audio...the program muxes the beginning of the file with the beginning of the audio data.
There are a few buts and extra tips. If your AVI happens to contain Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, you can possibly get a downmixed version and edit that, but you will not be able to output a 5.1 file back to AC3, Goldwave only works with 2 channels.
If say, your original source was MP3, you CAN save your audio as MP3 using Goldwave and select the MP3 file for your new audio in VirtualDub, but rather than selecting Full Processing for audio, just select DirectStreamCopy and it will mux the new AVI. This may or may not keep a file in sync..I've had conflicting results based on the specific encoder used.
You might be able to find a more simple method of doing this....searching for things like AVI mux or AVI splitter/combiner might yield a tool that's a bit more direct, however, the VirtualDub is a good solid way of doing it.
However, it is entirely possible to use Goldwave to boost your sound levels.
What you'll need to do is head over to virtualdub.org and grab a copy of virturaldub. I also highly suggest you pick up a copy of the K-Lite Codec Pack(http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm) because while you may have the proper DirectShow filters installed for video, VirtualDub does not use Directshow and depends on VFW (video for windows) codecs.
Open your video file in Goldwave to get the audio. Make whatever modifications to your audio WITHOUT EDITING! It's very important you do not make any cuts to the beginning or in the middle of the file in order to maintain sync. This method relies on the beginning of the audio file and further content to be the same. You CAN use mute if you want to remove something, but do not delete. The ONLY exception is if you're trimming audio off the end of the file, but a good rule of thumb is to not do any cutting/pasting/deleting to the file at all....just whatever effects you need to bring the audio back up. For best results, save this file as a wave.
Open your video file in VirtualDub. Click on Video in the menubar and select "direct stream copy", this tells virtualdub that we're not going to be processing the video and to just copy the video stream directly. Now jump to Audio. What you'll want to do is select the "Audio from antoher file" option and select your wav file. On the same audio drop-down menu, you'll want to select Full Processing Mode, this will enable you to select the compression settings so you can compress the audio to whatever codec you need. Once you've done that, select Save As AVI and make sure you save it to a different location or new file name. VirtualDub will compress the audio and output an AVI with the new audio with the old video. This simple process is basically known as muxing since we're basically having VirtualDub strip the streams from the AVI and create a new AVI using seperate streams. This is why it's important you don't edit the audio...the program muxes the beginning of the file with the beginning of the audio data.
There are a few buts and extra tips. If your AVI happens to contain Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, you can possibly get a downmixed version and edit that, but you will not be able to output a 5.1 file back to AC3, Goldwave only works with 2 channels.
If say, your original source was MP3, you CAN save your audio as MP3 using Goldwave and select the MP3 file for your new audio in VirtualDub, but rather than selecting Full Processing for audio, just select DirectStreamCopy and it will mux the new AVI. This may or may not keep a file in sync..I've had conflicting results based on the specific encoder used.
You might be able to find a more simple method of doing this....searching for things like AVI mux or AVI splitter/combiner might yield a tool that's a bit more direct, however, the VirtualDub is a good solid way of doing it.
Re: sound levels
Thanks,dewdube. Q. Is there any programme that will increase the sound without separating the audio file.
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DewDude420
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Re: sound levels
No...all programs are going to seperate the audio/video even internally for processing. Reason being is that the audio and video data in an AVI are interleaved...hence the name Audio Video Interleave...so in order to process the video, the audio and video data have to be "split", this occurs in realtime in playback and for what we're doing in VirtualDub...it's for the most part internal...it's not like we're having to demux BOTH the audio and video stream to the hard drive to recombine them.
Now, what you CAN do if you really want is open the AVI in VirtualDub, set audio to full processing, select "Use Advanced Filtering", then on the filters menu add the gain filter. This will have virtualdub amplify the audio rather than you having to go through goldwave to do it, however it is a fixed gain and if you're not careful, can lead to overloading.
Using Goldwave to get a seperate audio file and process that is the only way to really ensure the audio is going to be the loudest it can be without clipping.
But to answer your question, technically, any program that does this...regardless of how "direct" it seems, it still splitting the streams in memory and recombining them to make an AVI.
The splitting of audio and video streams is technically a lossless operation. You can split audio and video from an AVI in to seperate streams and recombine them with no loss of quality...it doesn't have to recompress the video or audio if the streams are already compressed. It's the same way with MPEG streams....they can be split and chopped up to make a smaller mpg file or if you want to say recompress just the video portion.
The way I described is the exact way I've been doing the same procedure for 10+ years with very successful results.
Now, what you CAN do if you really want is open the AVI in VirtualDub, set audio to full processing, select "Use Advanced Filtering", then on the filters menu add the gain filter. This will have virtualdub amplify the audio rather than you having to go through goldwave to do it, however it is a fixed gain and if you're not careful, can lead to overloading.
Using Goldwave to get a seperate audio file and process that is the only way to really ensure the audio is going to be the loudest it can be without clipping.
But to answer your question, technically, any program that does this...regardless of how "direct" it seems, it still splitting the streams in memory and recombining them to make an AVI.
The splitting of audio and video streams is technically a lossless operation. You can split audio and video from an AVI in to seperate streams and recombine them with no loss of quality...it doesn't have to recompress the video or audio if the streams are already compressed. It's the same way with MPEG streams....they can be split and chopped up to make a smaller mpg file or if you want to say recompress just the video portion.
The way I described is the exact way I've been doing the same procedure for 10+ years with very successful results.
Re: sound levels
No doubt my brain is fuzzy this evening, and I'm missing something obvious, but GW happily extracted the audio from a 33MB AVI (which VirtualDub coughed a bit at it's being in VBR), but the resulting saved .WAV (PCM signed 16-bit) was over 100MB (admittedly, I just left it at default in the interests of testing VD) - which, whence recombined via VirtualDub results in a 130MB (-ish) final AVI. VD doesn't seem happy to use a compression other than uncompressed PCM during reconstitution - which leads me to think I'm saving it from GW in the wrong WAV type... it there any way to tell what it was before it was extracted, so I might keep parity? Like I said, VD reported VBR, which was a bit vague... and if I experiment and try to reconstitute using a (significantly smaller) MP3, VD won't touch it.DewDude420 wrote:The splitting of audio and video streams is technically a lossless operation. You can split audio and video from an AVI in to seperate streams and recombine them with no loss of quality...it doesn't have to recompress the video or audio if the streams are already compressed.
Or, to simplify, which bloody WAV setting would be more kosher?
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DewDude420
- Posts: 1171
- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:15 pm
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Re: sound levels
Your audio stream then was likely MP3. If virtualdub is having a hard time with VBR mp3's, then you did not properly update the codecs (virtualdub doesn't use the same codecs goldwave does). I'm guessing from the file size this is an Divx/Xvid/H.264/mpeg4-derivative...which they commonly contain MP3 audio.No doubt my brain is fuzzy this evening, and I'm missing something obvious, but GW happily extracted the audio from a 33MB AVI (which VirtualDub coughed a bit at it's being in VBR), but the resulting saved .WAV (PCM signed 16-bit) was over 100MB (admittedly, I just left it at default in the interests of testing VD) - which, whence recombined via VirtualDub results in a 130MB (-ish) final AVI
I'm not sure why you say VD won't touch an MP3. I just now took a video file I've got laying around, opened the audio in Goldwave...exported it to an mp3..and imported the mp3 in to virtual dub by selecting "Audio From Other File" and making sure Direct Stream Copy was activated. It popped up asking me if it was a CBR or VBR mp3...which since I created it, I know it was a constant bit rate. I saved the AVI just fine.
I was also able to open a different video file...and after selecting Full Processing Mode for audio, was able to set Layer-3 compression and it worked just fine.
Generally you'll only get that for MP3. However, if you open your original file in VirtualDub and select File Information from the File dropdown, it'll display a box that will tell you what audio codec is used. If it shows up as Unknown (tag 0050) or similar...then it's likely mp3. A mp3 I exported from goldwave showed up like this in virtualdub...but I have no idea why.Like I said, VD reported VBR, which was a bit vague...
did you install k-lite...did you make sure you selected Full Processing Mode under audio? I don't have any of the problems you've described so i'm thinking you've missed a step.VD doesn't seem happy to use a compression other than uncompressed PCM during reconstitution - which leads me to think I'm saving it from GW in the wrong WAV type...
As long as it's 16-bit signed at whatever sample rate...VD should be able to work with it just fine...VD SHOULD be able to handle a mp3 file if you've followed the steps correctly.Or, to simplify, which bloody WAV setting would be more kosher?
Re: sound levels
Ok, it should have been noted that I was using the x64 version of VD, and I'm experienced enough to know one should restart windows after installing fresh codecsDewDude420 wrote:As long as it's 16-bit signed at whatever sample rate...VD should be able to work with it just fine...VD SHOULD be able to handle a mp3 file if you've followed the steps correctly.
. Live and learn in memory and humility. (Incidentally, I use Shark007's x32+x64 codecs, as K-Lite suffered too many growing pains in it's (x64) infancy and still doesn't seem fully mature just yet. Personal choice these days, I guess.)Indeed, MP3's work fine now... except one last query. The VBR notification when opening VD is just a warning, though it has the side effect of disabling the audio-wave display when editing - which is understandable given the nature of VBR. If using a WAV PCM the audio-display works fine (except for the inflated file-sizes); I was rather hoping VD would be happier (and display audio) if using a CBR MP3... this doesn't seem to be the case - it's still flagged as VBR even if it's explicitly not and the display is subsequently disabled. Does yours work this way? (Trying to figure out Video Editing is tough enough without having a nice friendly audio-wave as an extra reference
.) My question before, pertaining to which WAV setting was best, was based on the resulting file-size (trying to keep the final AVI size low). MP3's, as they now work for me, I suppose are fine... but would they (in the context of VD) still be considered for lossless editing, contrary to the "usual" MP3 caveats?Thanks for the short tutorial, it got me pointed in the right direction.
As an aside, playing with VD reminds me of using EAC - enough options and technical-labelling to make a beginner run for the hills in fear and trepidation. Perseverance, experimentation, and a lot of reading usually win the day though.
Cheers.
Addendum: And yes, I realise these issues perhaps had best be taken up on the VD forum, but I'm just picking your brain while I have your attention
